“We did it!” I squealed before we raced down the sidewalk. “Can you believe we pulled it off?”
Katherine didn’t say anything. While she was the one who usually took charge, it was up to me to take over and get the job done. “We need to get back to the hotel, change into our swimsuits, and jump in the water so it will look like we went swimming,” I said. “Quickly. I told Mom I’d be back by three.”
Katherine glanced at her phone. “We still have forty-five minutes,” she said, but we didn’t let up until we got to the front doors of the hotel. Then we slowed down, taking our time as we waited for the elevator to arrive to take us to the ground level, so we could make our way to the outdoor pool.
“We can get to the locker room from outside,” I told her as the elevator doors opened.
“Emily!” “Katherine!”
Both sets of parents stood on the other side, and they didn’t look happy.
Busted. We were totally busted.
“Emily Rose Saunders,” my mother said, her arms crossed in front of her chest, “I am waiting for an explanation.”
“The same goes for you,” Mrs. Bresner said to Katherine.
Madison stomped a squeaky foot. Mei Lin squealed and reached her arms out from her seat in the stroller, like she was really happy to see me.
Katherine and I glanced at each other. I knew we’d talked about what to do if we got caught, but my mind had gone completely blank. I had no idea what to say to my parents.
“We, uh,” Katherine looked at me, and when I didn’t help her, she snapped back to her regular self, confident and in control of the situation. “We went shopping.”
“Shopping?” Dad repeated, as if she’d just said we’d hiked through a bamboo rainforest to take pictures of giant pandas in their natural habitat.
“Yeah,” I said, my mind starting to work again. “We wanted to buy something special. And we couldn’t tell you, because . . . because” . . .”
“Because it was a surprise!” Katherine said triumphantly.
“Yeah, a surprise,” I said. “For you.”
I watched my parents’ faces carefully, and I could see the anger soften a little. Those curved-down eyebrows straightened a bit, and the frowns went back to lines. I knew a good thing when I fell into it, so I kept going. “I know we shouldn’t have done it, but we just went to the hotel lobby, and we were really careful”—”
“I figured it was okay,” Katherine said, “because you let me go to the shops in the lobby by myself before—”
“And I figured it was okay because I was with Katherine!”
We looked at each other and grinned. It probably wasn’t the right thing to do since our parents were definitely not grinning, but wow! Mom and Dad might get mad that I’d been sneaky and that I’d explored the hotel without permission, but it was a surprise. For them! How angry could they get about that?
“So, exactly what is this surprise?” Dad asked. “And it better be good.”
I felt my grin sliding away. “Um, well, we didn’t buy it yet. But it was going to have your name on it—”
“And our names, too,” Katherine added. “Something special for the whole family.”
“Except we didn’t have any Chinese money.” Bingo!
“So yeah,” Katherine said, “we kinda forgot about the money”—”
“After seven years at the Chinese Immersion School?” Mrs. Bresner actually sounded more disappointed that Katherine wasn’t using her head than she was upset about us being sneaky. “Did you really forget you can’t buy anything with American dollars in China?”
Katherine shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly, I guess.”
“We were so excited about the plan, that’s all,” I said.
“You should have told us where you were going, Katherine,” Mr. Bresner said. “It was nice of you to think of us, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you lied.”
Katherine looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry, Dad. I really am.”
“Me too,” I said. “We shouldn’t have sneaked out without telling you.”
There was silence for a minute. I had a feeling the Bresners had already forgiven Katherine for not telling the truth. I was in for some sort of punishment, for sure. But who cares? We’d posted Katherine’s ad, we were back at the hotel safe and sound, and Mom and Dad would never find out what really happened.
“Emily,” my mother said, her voice sharp as needles. “Is that Nana’s camera around your neck?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
For a moment, time froze. I was positive the hands of the clock had totally stopped ticking. I stared down at the camera, which was clearly in view. How could I be so stupid?
I’d been so focused on our adventure that I’d forgotten a very important detail: Put Nana’s camera back inside my backpack, and zip it up tight.
“Emily. We’re waiting for an answer,” my father said in a voice that told me he wasn’t kidding around.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, it’s Nana’s camera.”
“. . . And?” Dad said.
I avoided his eyes, looking out at the swimming pool. “And, I brought it with me to China. So, I could take pictures for the contest. Because, I really really want to win the contest, and a plain old digital camera isn’t good enough—”
“Are you telling me,” my mother interrupted with a voice that was slowly rising, “that you brought Nana’s camera even though we told you not to?”
I nodded. “But I had to, Mom! Nana’s camera is special—”
“That’s right,” Mom said. “It is special. It’s irreplaceable. It could have been damaged, or lost during this trip, so we told you not to bring it, but you brought it anyway?”
“I couldn’t help it! I needed Nana’s good luck. I took good care of it. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to it.”
This time Dad cleared his throat. Maybe I’d gone too far.
Mom turned to the Bresners. “I’m sorry about all this. Whatever’s going on, it’s clear that Emily dragged Katherine into it.”
“She didn’t drag me,” Katherine said quietly.
I bit my tongue to keep from spitting out whose adventure it really was. Because the truth is, it was all Katherine’s fault. If she hadn’t asked me to help her, I wouldn’t be standing in front of my parents right now with Nana’s camera around my neck.
Right about that point, Mei Lin broke into a howl. And I mean a HOWL. It was the kind that could bust your eardrums. The whole time we’d been talking, Mei Lin had been playing quietly with toys in her stroller while Madison sat on the floor and played with her own toys. But Mei Lin had just dropped her pretend phone, and Madison had picked it up.
It was perfect timing. We were getting way too close to the truth. If Mom and Dad were furious that I’d disobeyed them by bringing the camera to China, I didn’t know what they were going to do when they found out that: 1) I’d snuck out with Katherine and taken a cab to a park in Guangzhou; 2) I’d helped Katherine post a message to her birthmom even though her mother didn’t want her to; and 3) I’d covered up the whole adventure by saying we’d gone shopping to buy a present to surprise my parents.
Oh, boy. Was I in a boatload of trouble.
Mrs. Bresner turned to Madison. “That’s not yours,” she said, picking up the pink sparkly phone and handing it to Mei Lin. She stopped howling. Madison picked up where Mei Lin left off. I didn’t mind a bit. Busted eardrums were better than a discussion about how I’d lied.
“Looks like we need to go,” Mrs. Bresner said, picking up Madison, who was turning red in the face from all her howling.
“We’re not finished yet,” Mr. Bresner said, shooting a warning look at Katherine.
“We’re not finished either,” Dad said to me as he pushed the stroller in the direction of the playroom. “We’re far from it.”
I nodded glumly. That’s exactly what I was afraid of.
***
We didn’t talk about it aga
in until after a long visit to the playroom. I was on my very best behavior, following Mei Lin around and playing with her the whole time. We tried out every toy, from blocks to Dancing Elmo. I sang songs while she shook the musical instruments, followed her through tunnels on my belly, and even put her on my lap as we went down the slide.
I stopped to take a few pictures with Nana’s camera. I still couldn’t get Mei Lin to smile, but she looked beautiful peeking out from inside the red tunnel.
The bad thing about playing with Mei Lin is that it left Mom and Dad alone to talk. About me and my punishment, of course. Every time I glanced over at them, they were looking straight at me and they definitely weren’t smiling. It gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. They’d caught me in a great big lie. What were they going to do to me? Make me stay close to them for the rest of the trip and no more hanging out with Katherine? Ground me for the rest of my life?
Just as I’d suspected, as soon as we made it back to the room and my parents put Mei Lin down for a nap, questions started flying again. I knew they were on to me when they said, “We want to know where you girls went sneaking off to this afternoon. And this time, we want the truth.”
If I told the truth, I’d betray Katherine. There was too much at risk. If Katherine’s parents found out, they might take her phone to keep her from answering any phone calls from her birth family. I just couldn’t do it, not after we’d come this far.
“Katherine went with me to take photos for the contest. It was the only way to get pictures with Nana’s camera, just like I told you.”
“And you thought you could get winning photos by taking pictures in the hotel?” Dad asked. “You didn’t go anywhere else?”
I hesitated. I knew the story still didn’t sound believable, so I added, “We went to the park, the one right up the street.”
“You’re telling me that the two of you went to the park by yourselves, when you were specifically told not to go anywhere without us?” Dad asked.
“Shamian Island is a safe place,” I said. “You said it yourself, that it’s just tourists and business people who are staying here. You let me go to the park by myself at home—”
“Emily!” Dad said. “Don’t you understand we’re in a foreign country? If something had happened to you, it would be impossible to follow a trail, especially when you took off without telling us where you were going!”
Mom just kept shaking her head back and forth. Dad took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put his glasses back on. And that’s when it really hit me.
We had done something really dangerous. It had worked out fine, but the opposite could have happened. I could never tell my parents the truth or they would never trust me again.
I dropped my head and clasped my hands tightly in my lap, unable to look at either one of them.
“We are so disappointed in you, Emily,” Dad said.
Silence. I let the words sink in until I felt them in every part of my body. If they were disappointed now, I couldn’t imagine how they would feel if they really knew what had taken place that afternoon.
Mom didn’t say a word.
“This isn’t the first time you snuck out of the room without permission, is it?” Dad asked.
I shook my head slowly. Wow. How did he ever figure that out? Dad was like a regular Sherlock Holmes or something.
“Which means you’ve lied to us countless times on this trip,” Dad continued.
“Only twice!” I said. Then I remembered the times I explored the hotel, by myself and with Katherine. I clasped my hands so tightly they turned white.
“We trusted you, Emily. We gave you the camera because we felt you were responsible, but now we’ve changed our minds.”
I looked up. “Ch-changed your minds?”
My parents were both nodding. “That’s right,” Mom said. “We hate to do this, but you’ve left us no choice. We’re taking back Nana’s camera—”
My hands tightened around the camera, which still hung around my neck. “But you can’t! It’s mine! You gave it to me as a birthday present, remember?”
“Of course we remember,” Mom said. She paused, as if choosing her next words carefully. “Honey,” she said, her voice softer. “You did something extremely dangerous. Wandering off in a foreign city on the other side of the world . . .” she shook her head, “without telling us where you were. I can’t even bring myself to think about all the things that could have happened to you. When we gave you Nana’s camera, we were trusting you with a very special gift. Your dad and I have discussed this, and we feel the only way you’ll understand the seriousness of your actions—”
I shook my head. “I’ll do anything, anything! Ground me until I’m thirteen, make me give up computer privileges—whatever you say, but PLEASE don’t take Nana’s camera. I just have to win this contest—”
“Emily. The discussion is over.” Dad held out his hand.
My eyes watered. I will not cry, I told myself as I lifted the camera strap from my neck and handed it to him.
“You’re lucky we’re still letting you enter this contest,” Mom said. “Sometimes it seems you’ve forgotten the whole reason we’re on this trip. We did not come to China just so you could participate in a photography contest.”
“Forget?” Something exploded in me then, and the words rushed out of me like the fizz that pours out of a soda bottle when you shake it up. “How could I forget that we came to China to adopt a baby? We’ve spent every day in boring government buildings just so you could take a family picture without me! Getting Mei Lin has changed everything! You’re so busy with the new baby that you never even noticed that I’d brought Nana’s camera and was taking pictures the whole time. You never noticed that I snuck out because you were too busy napping when we could have been out exploring China—”
“Emily.” Dad put his hand on my arm, trying to warn me that I was going too far but I couldn’t stop.
I shrugged away his hand. “Or that I was busy making plans with Katherine. The only time you’ve noticed me at all was when some stupid lady wanted to take my picture. And you let her take it, when I didn’t even want her to!”
“Honey,” Mom said in a quiet voice. “I-I know this has been an adjustment for you, but it’s no excuse for lying, or sneaking around and putting yourself in danger.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. “You know what? Nana would want me to have her camera. It’s not fair. It stinks! The whole thing stinks!” I yelled and then I stormed out of the room, into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
Mei Lin must not have liked all the yelling because as soon as I slammed the door, she started shrieking. I dropped down onto the hard toilet seat, covered my ears with my hands, and that’s when the tears finally came.
***
After a while, Mei Lin calmed down and there was a knock on the bathroom door. “Emily?” Mom asked. “Are you okay?”
“Go away!” I shouted. It didn’t matter what I did now. I was already in deep trouble, and I’d already been given the worst punishment ever.
I thought back to my twelfth birthday in February, when my parents saved the best gift for last. I’d pulled the purple tissue out of the bag to find Nana’s camera sitting at the bottom, waiting for me. I remembered sucking in my breath, unable to believe that my parents would trust me with my grandmother’s most prized possession.
“For me?” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I pulled out the camera.
Mom’s eyes were shining. “She’d want you to have it.”
I ran my fingers over the black vinyl, feeling my grandmother’s spirit reaching out from the camera, filling me up inside with her magic. With Nana’s camera, anything was possible.
I could hear my parents talking to each other in hushed voices. “Well, we handled that really well,” Mom said.
Dad sighed. “We’re not perfect, Lynn. We tried to handle it the best we could.”
I sniffled, loud as I could so they could hear me.
There was silence for a moment, then Dad said, “Maybe we should rethink this, give her a chance to earn the camera back. Her grandmother would want her to have it, you know.”
I wiped my eyes and cracked the door then. I listened for a while, realizing there was this thing called Parent Guilt, and it was definitely getting to them. So, I took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom.
“I’m really sorry,” I said softly, sitting down next to Mom on the bed. “About the lying and sneaking around. We—Katherine and I—thought that Shamian Island was a safe place, and we didn’t go far from the hotel. Also, I’m sorry about what I said about Mei Lin. I’m glad we came to China to adopt a baby.”
Mom smiled. My words must have been exactly what she wanted to hear because next thing I knew, she had her arm around me. “We love you so much, Emily. Two young girls wandering off by yourselves in a foreign city . . . anything could have happened. You understand that now, don’t you?”
“I won’t do it again,” I told her, and I meant it.
Mom looked over at Dad, who nodded. “If you promise not to sneak out again—not even to go somewhere in the hotel on your own—then we’ll let you use Nana’s camera for the rest of the time in China, with our supervision.
I threw my arms around her. “Oh Mom, thank you so much! Just wait and see what I’m going to do for the contest!”
“But we’re still keeping the camera,” Dad said, “At least for now. You can only use it when you ask permission, understood?”
I nodded and gave my dad a big hug. It was all working out! Even though I couldn’t win the contest with “Adopted Girl Finds Birthmom in China,” Nana’s camera could still help me win with “China’s Expected and Unexpected Beauty.”
A joy filled me up inside as I thought about how I had the best, most understanding parents in the world.
Emily Out of Focus Page 11